Workshop

Metastasis

Progression of cancer from localized to metastatic is thought of as a binary event that in most cases takes a patient and physician from pursuing a curative strategy to a palliative one. Successful metastasis consists of multiple biologically complex processes: intravasation, circulation culminating with arrest at an end organ, and extravasation and colony formation. While these processes account for nearly all cancer mortality, our understanding of them remains limited as it is very difficult to study in vivo. Due to this inherent difficulty we believe that mathematical models can act as a tool to facilitate a better understanding of metastasis in terms of dispersal, initiation, progression and treatment.